Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones was the only major release of the weekend, opening in 2,867 US locations. While its estimated $18.2 million domestic take was way off its two predecessors (PA 3’s $52.7m and PA 4’s $29 million), it still more than tripled its $5 million budget. Consider also that the first Paranormal Activity came out in 2009 and they’ve been able to crank out a sequel a year since then. The Marked Ones was a found-footage, Paranormal Activity spinoff set in the Latino community of Oxnard. “The Mexorcist,” as I like to call it, was shrugged at by critics and was apparently not well received by paying customers either.

According to Paramount, the audience was split evenly between men and women, and skewed very young (68 percent under 25 years of age). They awarded the movie a weak “C-” CinemaScore, which is even worse than Paranormal Activity 4’s “C” grade. [BoxOfficeMojo]

So no one likes them but the studio keeps making them and earning triple the budget opening day. Horror movies are kind of like traffic school, they get credit for just showing up.

Elsewhere, Frozen continues to benefit from no kid-movie competition, taking the top spot with $20.7 million. American Hustle and Wolf of Wall Street are still doing will, and look on pace to pass $100 million, which Anchorman 2 has already done. The sequel has long surpassed the first Anchorman, which topped out at $90 million worldwide. Impressive, it was like they barely marketed that thing.

Next week, Lone Survivor goes head to head with The Legend of Hercules, to see which America wants more, a tiny-armed Navy SEAL or a twink Hercules. Personally, I’m saving my money for Aaron Eckhart as a WASP Frankenstein’s monster in I,Frankenstein. They say all the good ideas are already taken, but then “WASP Frankenstein’s monster punching gargoyles in the face” was RIGHT THERE UNDER OUR NOSES. Amazing.

This didn’t seem like a true “kid-movie” to me. Seems to be aimed more at tweens (it’s a Disney-princess musical and doesn’t have a lot of slapstick buffoonery to amuse the young ‘uns) but I guess it’s still more kid-friendly than The Wolf of Wall Street and heaven forbid you have to keep the kids at home on a weekend day.

I saw American Hustle this movie and have to agree with Leonard Maltin, it left me feeling absolutely nothing and I wasn’t invested in any of the characters. I was really surprised how little I liked it outside of the Louis CK and Michael Pena scenes – though amazingly I did like Jeremy Renner in it. Should have seen Nebraska.

I wasn’t expecting anything deep or profound out of it, I just thought it was a really fun con-artist flick. And I was absolutely invested in all of the characters, especially Irving, Sydney, and Carmine.

It is hard to say. HBO, supposedly, pays 20th Century Fox about $200million a year for access to its movies (with a 10-year $2billion deal in place). Otherwise, they pay 10-12% of the films domestic box office for rights to show the film (the real, or main reason US domestic box office is important). But even that is on films that gross less than $200mil. So films over that gross, I don’t know. I would assume they are negotiated on an individual basis, but not that drastically over 15-20% of the domestic box office.

So if a film grossed $199mil, HBO or Showtime or whoever $19-$23.5mil to broadcast it, usually for a set amount of time.

As for DVD/BluRay sales, for producers it varies according to contracts. I know that directors generally get 10% and writers 1.5-2% of those profits for life. And these figures can change drastically as well, given contracts, experience, lawyering, etc…

All I know is Shane Black is definitely moving into a new, bigger house after directing Iron Man 3.

“My heart was fashioned to be susceptible to Uggs and Billy Joel, and when wrenched by misery to Linkin Park and Ben and Jerry’s. It did not endure the change without so much of my dad’s money as you cannot imagine.” -Ashley Shelley’s Frankenwasp

Fuck it, I found the movie enjoyable. Rather than stick to the formula (there’s not NIGHT 1, etc security cam footage), they branched out a bit, while also expanding the mythology of what’s going on (for better or worse).

Plus, this movie has Gangbangers vs Witches during the climax, and the surrealness there was worth the matinee price.

I had never even heard of this shit until I heard last night on NPR that it had failed to top Frozen at the box office. It was fun to look at that chart and momentarily forget that the budget column was in millions.

Also, I haven’t seen it or read much of anything about it, but how did Wolf of Wall Street cost the same amount as Gravity?